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Tuesday, January 11, 2005

WILL RA'SEAN DICKEY PLAY AGAINST UNC?Well, it looks to be a gametime decision due to the knee injury. Here's an interesting point for some of you who don't follow recruiting. Ra'Sean Dickey really had his heart set on going to North Carolina originally. He was being recruiting by Matt D, but was dropped once Roy Williams got to town, who wanted to "go another direction", as they say. So you KNOW that Ra'Sean wants to play in that game and prove they made a mistake. Will his knee be ready? We'll have to see, but I bet you anything he's telling everyone he's 100% just fine!!! On another note, Will Bynum suffered a concussion and will probably be a gametime decision as well. My guess is that he plays though.

FOR SOME ACC RIVALS, IT'S ONE-AND-DONEIf GT and UNC play again after Wednesday night, it will be in the ACC or NCAA tourney. Is it right? Well, it just is what it is. What it means is that the Jackets better get prepared mentally, because there's no "we'll see you at our house". They better go all out to win this one...period

DICKEY VITALEWell, evidently he's doing the game Wed night. Whoopie. And he's already writing about the Heels. Anything on the Jackets from Vitale. Nope. Just that his precious Holes will be playing us Wed. Would you expect anything more?

MORE ON ACADEMIC STANDARDSInterestingly, the NCAA will come out be publishing the APR's (Academic Progress Rate) of all schools for 2003/2004 in the next few weeks. THAT should be VERY interesting.

APR, for academic progress rate, a measure of how many players stay academically eligible and stay in school or graduate. Teams whose APRs drop below a certain level face a loss of scholarships, either immediately or in the next academic year. For example, a basketball team that incurs a penalty this fall will have fewer than 13 scholarships in 2005-06 or in 2006-07.

The NCAA plans to make the APRs public as a way to shame schools into improving academic performance. APRs from 2003-04 will come out in a few weeks. In the end, the APRs and the scholarship cuts that will accompany them are meant as tools to improve graduation rates.

Here's how it is calculated:

1. Calculate the academic progress rate. After each semester, look at each team's scholarship athletes. Award a team one point for each athlete who remains academically eligible and one point for each athlete who returns for the following semester or graduates. Divide the total points by the total possible points and multiply by 1,000. That's the academic progress rate (APR) for the team.

2. At the start of each school year, check to see if a team's average APR over the past two years* is above the NCAA-set cutoff line of 925. If yes, there are no penalties. If no, go back over the past year and count the number of players who, in NCAA jargon, went 0-for-2 by becoming academically ineligible and leaving school despite having athletics eligibility remaining. The team loses one scholarship for each of those players, although the penalty will be no more than 10 percent of the team's total number of scholarships.

* -- The APR will be averaged over four years once enough data become available.